


As the Tide Comes Tumbling In

by Polomonkey



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Drug Withdrawal, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Kidnapping, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Protective Arthur, Recovery, Restraints, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 08:43:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6367777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polomonkey/pseuds/Polomonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin never thought that being a politician's husband would make him a target. But then he's kidnapped by two men looking for Arthur's attention and finds himself trapped in a living nightmare.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As the Tide Comes Tumbling In

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LFB72](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LFB72/gifts).



> For the wonderful LFB72, who has made so many beautiful artworks for my fic! You asked for Merlin whump and caring Arthur, plus drugged Merlin. Two very different stories came to mind for that so here is the first (and angstier) one. I hope you enjoy it like I've enjoyed your wonderful art!
> 
> Also fills my substance addiction square on hurt/comfort bingo. Please do read the tags before proceeding friends.

“I’m so so sorry.”

The young man on Merlin’s front doorstep looks distraught. He’s wringing his hands together, face twitching, and his eyes are red rimmed, glossy.

“I think I’ve hit your cat with my van. It just came out of nowhere, I tried to stop but I-”

“Woah, slow down,” Merlin says, raising a calming hand. He’s a primary school teacher and soothing hysterical children (and occasionally parents) has become par for the course. 

“First of all, we don’t have a cat.”

The young man doesn’t look reassured.

“Then I hit someone else’s!” he wails.

“Is it a tabby?” Merlin asks, his heart sinking a little. Kindly old Gaius next door has a tabby named Jinx that’s his pride and joy. He’ll be heartbroken if she’s hurt.

“I don’t know,” the young man says miserably and Merlin gives him a reassuring pat on the arm.

“It’ll be alright. Is she… still alive?”

“I think so.”

“Let’s go and have a look then,” Merlin says firmly. “We might be able to take her to an emergency vet.”

It’ll cost a pretty penny but Merlin knows Arthur won’t mind. His husband would never leave an animal in pain.

“Okay,” the man says eagerly. “I’m just parked down this side street. I put her in the back of my van so no more cars could-”

He breaks off, choked.

“Don’t worry,” Merlin says, following him round the corner. “We’ll figure this out.”

And it’s hard to remember much after that. He has a vague memory of climbing into the back of the van to take a closer look at the bundle in the corner. Of picking the cloth up and finding nothing underneath. Of a single moment of pure confusion.

Then there’s a pin prick in his neck and everything fades away. 

He thinks he might hear the man say sorry one last time, but it’s impossible to say.

 

***

 

When he wakes up, everything’s black. For a heart stopping moment he thinks he’s gone blind, but then his mind clears enough to feel the press of material against his eyes.

The moment he registers he’s been blindfolded it all rushes back to him: the man at the door, the van, the sting in his neck. He attempts to rise from where he’s lying on his side and finds he can only make it to a sitting position. Something that feels like a zip tie is wrapped around his wrists, tethering him to some kind of metal pipe.

Kidnapped. He’s actually been kidnapped.

It seems so unreal, like some plot out of one of those scary crime shows Arthur’s always watching. They’d talked about the attendant security risks of Arthur being promoted to Secretary of State for Justice before, but they had all been risks to Arthur, not him. Politicians were always in the line of fire to a certain degree but there hadn’t been an incident for years. Merlin never thought there was even a chance he might be targeted.

Because it is to do with Arthur’s job, he knows it is. He doesn’t have any enemies, he’s a primary school teacher for God’s sake. And it’s unlikely to be about money – he and Arthur are comfortably well off nowadays but they certainly don’t have millions in the bank. So it must be political. But what could they want?

Merlin’s whole body is shaking, his hands twisting desperately in their ties. He can’t shift them but he can move his legs a little, they’re not tied together, and he’s not gagged either. The logical thing would be to shout, just in case he’s being held near people. But what if his captors are watching? And hurt him for making noise…

It’s a risk he has to take.

“Help!” he shouts, trying to project his voice as much as possible. “Help me! Help!”

Almost immediately there’s a corresponding bang and the sound of a door opening.

It’s too much to hope they might be rescuers but Merlin keeps shouting anyway.

“Help, please help me, get me out of here-”

“No one can hear you,” a rough voice says. “You’ll only tire yourself out.”

For some reason, hearing the voice of one of his kidnappers sends Merlin completely hysterical and he starts screaming as loud as he can.

“Should I gag him?” a different voice says, sounding younger than the first.

“Unless you wanna listen to that all day,” the rough voice says irritably.

Merlin twists away when the hands take hold of his chin but it’s no use as what feels like a scarf is wrapped tightly round his mouth. He feels doubly vulnerable with another sense cut off and he carries on thrashing around for quite a while until he feels a hand on his shoulder.

“I know you’re scared. But no-one’s gonna hurt you if you behave yourself. Sit tight for a while and you’ll be out before you know it. If your husband cooperates.”

At the mention of Arthur, Merlin moans behind the scarf, shaking his head.

“You can have the gag off if you stop shouting. The blindfold stays on. Ask or tap your leg if you need to go to the toilet. Otherwise stay quiet.”

Merlin subsides then. He wants the gag off. He’s worried he’ll suffocate with it on; it’s already hard to get air in.

“Going to be good?”

It’s the kind of thing Merlin might say to one of his naughtier Year Twos, and he flinches at being talked to like a child. But he’s afraid enough to nod.

The gag is pulled off and Merlin gasps a little, but he doesn’t scream. He believes them when they say that no-one can hear him.

But he can’t resist speaking.

“Who are you? What do you want with my husband?”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” the rough voice says briskly. “As for us… you can call me Alvarr. And my friend here is Daegal.”

The man chuckles at his weak joke. Alvarr and Daegal are the main characters in The Littlest Knight, a popular cartoon series. Merlin’s class love it, they’re always pretending to be knights in the playground; replacing the craze for Jedis and Sith before that, and elves and hobbits before that.

Even Arthur knows what it is. He used to joke that the show would be better with King Arthur and his faithful warlock in it. 

Arthur…

Did he know Merlin was gone yet? How long has he been out for? What could they possibly want Arthur to do?

“Just tell me-” Merlin begins but is silenced by a rough finger on his lips.

“No more talking or the gag goes back on.”

Merlin shuts his mouth and tries to think. Is there any point in trying to talk reasonably to them? But how can he when he doesn’t even know what they want?

A flare of light flashes at the edge of his vision and he flinches.

“Photo,” the rough voice – Alvarr – says. “To send to the Right Honourable Member.”

Merlin bites back a response to that, pained by the idea of Arthur seeing him like this. He's overprotective at the best of times. This will hurt him like nothing else.

He ducks his head, his own fear warring with his fear for his husband. He has to find a way to escape. For Arthur’s sake as much as his own.

 

***

 

His chance comes sooner than he thinks. He waits until one of them has gone to sleep, listening for the soft snoring sound across the room, then he quietly asks to go to the bathroom. 

Merlin’s managed to make a vague guess at where the door is in relation to him, and he thinks his best shot is to just run at it. It might be locked, he might be stopped there, but he has to try.

When his hands are untied from the pipe – he thinks by Alvarr – he doesn’t do anything at first, just stretches them out in front of him. It isn’t until he’s being guided across the room that he makes his move.

He puts his hands together and sinks them into Alvarr’s midsection, doubling over and pushing back at the same time to aid his momentum. Alvarr grunts and falls back and Merlin runs flat out in the direction of the door.

He makes it maybe five paces before Alvarr catches up with him. His legs are stiff after too long spent sitting down and he’s never been the fastest runner, especially when he can’t see where he’s going. Alvarr tackles him from behind and there’s an audible crack as Merlin’s left ankle twists beneath him.

The pain is unbelievable. Merlin broke his arm once, as a teenager, but he remembers it as more of a dull ache than the searing, mind numbing agony coursing through his leg.

He shouts, desperate for Alvarr to get off him but the man is still pressing him to the floor, trying to take hold of his wrists again.

“My ankle…” he sobs out but Alvarr is too busy swearing at him to hear.

“Told you to fucking sit tight! Useless fucking-”

“Ah!”

Merlin screams as Alvarr presses his knee into his injured leg. Black spots start to appear before his eyes and he claws at the carpet, desperate for the pain to stop.

Alvarr finally seems to notice and the weight on top of him shifts and moves away.

Merlin can breathe a little easier then, although the fire in his ankle is unabated.

“Hey! Come and help me!”

Footsteps sound and stop short next to them.

“What happened?”

“Idiot tried to run,” Alvarr says brusquely. “Think he hurt himself falling over. Help me get him up.”

Hands move around Merlin’s shoulders and he realises what’s about to happen if they pull him upright.

“Not on my ankle,” he begs desperately and the hands stop.

“We’ll have to lift him,” Daegal’s quiet voice says.

“Fine but it won’t be painless whatever way we do it,” Alvarr says grimly.

They end up doing a kind of half carry, half drag. It’s less painful than walking probably would be but it’s agonising enough that Merlin blacks out for a few seconds. He’s propped up against the wall and his hands are tied again but he barely even notices. He’s focussing on breathing, on the darker black behind the blindfold that continues to threaten.

A hand gingerly touches his ankle and he shies away. He’s crying now, it’s all too much, he just wants to go home. Where is Arthur, why hasn’t he come for him yet?

“Bad?” Alvarr says dispassionately.

“I think you broke his ankle.”

Merlin knows they must be staring at him and he bites his lip in an effort to stop the tears falling. It’s no use though; the pain is too much to bear.

“Jesus. Give him a dose,” Alvarr says at last.

_A dose of what?_

There are footsteps and then some unidentifiable noises. Merlin can’t see what’s going on and it makes his stomach clench with fear. But when he hears the flick of a lighter turning on and then a strange smell in the air, a horrible suspicion sets in.

“No,” he says. “No, please…”

“It’s pain relief,” Alvarr says, as though Merlin is being unreasonable.

“No drugs, please,” Merlin says desperately. He’d rather just sit with the agony in his ankle than this.

But the noises carry on, he can hear the tap of plastic and it’s not too hard to imagine what they’re doing.

“I don’t want it,” Merlin says to no-one in particular.

No-one listens.

When he feels one of them get within arm’s reach, Merlin tries to stand again and the pain is so intense that he nearly blacks out.

Daegal tuts.

“It’ll feel good,” he says, as though he can’t understand Merlin’s aversion.

Merlin shakes his head, trying to drag himself backwards across the floor. When someone kneels down next to him, Merlin lashes out with shaky limbs.

“Help,” he tries, voice cracking. “Somebody help!”

“Oh for God’s sake,” Alvarr says and seconds later Merlin is flat on his back, right arm pulled away from his body.

He struggles against what must be Alvarr’s hold, terror coursing through him.

“Please don’t do this! Get off me! Get off me! Get-”

The point of a needle pierces the crook of Merlin’s arm.

It hurts but only for a second. And then… and then…

It’s a bit like something melting in his stomach and spreading out across his whole body, warming him through.

Merlin floats away.

 

***

 

When he comes back to himself, he’s cold. There’s an itch on his jaw and he wants to scratch it but he can’t move his hands. Why can’t he move his hands? Merlin can’t remember. Perhaps they rolled away. The thought is funny to him and he repeats it a few times in his head.

“Jesus, shut up,” a voice says, so maybe he’s been saying it out loud after all. He doesn’t stop though because it’s still funny. Even the sound of the door slamming doesn’t put Merlin off.

“How long’s he been saying that?” a quieter voice asks.

“Two fucking hours,” the first says. “You gave him too much.”

“It’s your batch.”

“Whatever. Give him a downer. I must have fucked up the balance.”

Merlin finds his mouth being prised open and he giggles. Perhaps it’s his own hands come back to help him.

Something hard drops on his tongue and then the neck of a bottle is pressed into his mouth.

“Swallow,” the voice instructs.

Merlin does.

“Will you itch my jaw?” he tries to say but it comes out funny.

There’s a pause and then he feels a tentative scratch on his face.

“For fuck’s sake, _Daegal_ , just gag him.”

Merlin doesn’t mind the cloth being shoved back inside his mouth; it feels nice to have something to chew on. But after a while the feel of the material against his tongue makes him a little sick. He’s really cold now and he’s getting itchy all over – not a pleasant tingle like before, but something that aches.

“Want my hands back,” he says into the gag. “Gimme my hands back. Gimme my hands back!”

No one says anything and Merlin starts to cry, big frustrated tears that drip down his face and onto his neck.

“My hands,” he wails, bereft. They must be gone forever, he’s never getting them back. He wants to scratch his legs, his stomach, his arms; he’s so itchy but he has no hands to do it with. He rubs his head up against the wall, tries to create friction with his jeans but when he moves his legs there’s only pain and he can’t remember why.

He sobs a little longer, then subsides, shivery and miserable. 

He doesn’t remember falling asleep.

 

***

 

When he wakes up again, he feels sick to his stomach. His head aches and his ankle is throbbing steadily and his hands have gone numb from being tied for so long. He moans out loud and someone moves near him

“Drink this.”

A bottle is tipped into his mouth and he sucks the water down greedily. It’s seconds before he stops to consider that there might be something in it.

But they’ve already held him down and injected him; they don’t need to hide their drugs in water.

The memory of what happened chokes him up and he coughs around a mouthful. The bottle is removed and he swallows with difficulty, trying to quell the panic rising in his stomach.

“More?”

“Get away from me,” Merlin rasps, sounding braver than he feels.

“Eat this first.”

He thinks the voice is Daegal’s, there’s a note of uncertainty in it that is never present with Alvarr. 

Something soft brushes against his lips and he recoils.

“Come on, you have to eat.”

Merlin doesn’t want to do anything these people tell him to do; not to mention the fact that the thought of food makes him feel even sicker. But he recognises that he might be here a while and he needs to survive until Arthur comes for him.

Still it’s unimaginably horrible to eat food from the same hands that drugged him against his will and every mouthful of the sandwich sticks in his throat. Worse is yet to come when he realises he needs to go to the bathroom. The pressure that walking puts on his ankle is the least of it; although hobbling across the room leant on Daegal is certainly unpleasant. He feels slighter and smaller than Merlin expected, and Merlin has the thought that one of his kidnappers might be no more than a teenager. He can’t quite match the voice to the young man on his doorstep but it makes sense that they might be one and the same, and the thought is not comforting. How had someone so young gotten mixed up in something like this?

He’s dragged abruptly from these thoughts when he feels a hand tugging on his zipper.

“Get off me!”

“I have to-”

“No!” Merlin says, batting the hand away with his own two tied ones. He can’t bear the indignity. “I can- I can do it myself, just-”

His hands have been retied in front of him for the trip; it’ll be awkward but he’ll manage, rather than let this stranger touch him…

“You can’t see to aim,” the voice points out, but he doesn’t sound confident and Merlin takes a gamble.

“You may as well take the blindfold off. I know you’re the man from the doorstep.”

There’s a sharp intake of breath and then a long silence. Merlin wonders if he’s pushed it too far but then he hears a kind of sighing breath and suddenly light floods his vision.

He has to blink for quite a while; his eyes unused to anything but darkness. When his surroundings clear he sees a small and dirty bathroom, a cracked sink and toilet, and the pale face of the man from the other night.

He looks younger than Merlin remembers him. And the signs Merlin took for anxiety before – the red eyes, the twitching – make it terribly apparent that he’s no stranger to the drugs they’ve been forcing on Merlin.

He doesn’t want to feel sympathy for this man, this _boy_ , but there’s the smallest of twinges inside him at the misery on his face.

“Ch- Alvarr will kill me,” Daegal says and the words _if you tell_ go unspoken. 

Merlin nods, wearily. He’s nothing to gain by coming clean. He’d rather have his dignity now than get Daegal in trouble.

Daegal does him the minute kindness of turning away as he urinates. Merlin isn’t tempted to run again. His ankle is far too weak and he’ll get nowhere.

Arthur would probably run but then he’s always been braver than Merlin.

“What do you want with Arthur?” he says suddenly. He wouldn’t push Alvarr like this, but he knows Daegal to be more pliant.

Not that pliant however. The blindfold is back around his eyes before he knows it and he’s being led from the bathroom. He goes over on his ankle a few times and can’t help but whimper in pain.

He’s still moaning softly when Alvarr comes back and that’s a mistake.

“Give him some more,” Alvarr says briefly and then the whole nightmare starts again.

 

***

 

A pattern sets in after that. They give him water, food, take him to the toilet, and then they drug him again. 

He’s lost track of time. It could be days that he’s been here, it could be weeks. In his lucid moments he tries to figure it out but he never has enough information to go on. It’s impossible to tell how long he’s high for when the drugs kick in. Everything blurs into a sick haze.

He tries to hold onto his sanity in the short comedowns between doses. He thinks hard about Arthur, about every happy moment they’ve shared together. The time they got drunk on a houseboat party and danced to Motown all night. The time Arthur put too many popcorn kernels in the pan and the whole thing exploded all over the kitchen. The time Merlin lost his hat in the Lake District and they spent half an hour chasing it across a field, laughing hysterically.

Most of all he falls back on his favourite memories. The annual trip that he and his Year 2 class take to Scarborough to visit the seaside. Every year without fail Arthur books it off work and volunteers to accompany them. It always warms Merlin’s heart to see Arthur building sandcastles or pointing out the boats or wading into the sea hand in hand with one of the more nervous kids, to show them there’s nothing to be afraid of. 

One of Merlin’s most cherished photos is of Arthur ankle deep in a rock pool, holding up a starfish he found. Merlin’s beside him, pressed into his side, grinning fit to burst. Because people don’t usually recognise the happiest moments of their lives until years later but Merlin had known right there and then that this was one of the best times. That the sun was shining and the kids were laughing and he was with the man he loved. That this was the kind of luck most people don’t get in a lifetime.

Perhaps he’d always known their luck would run out someday but he didn’t think it would be like this.

One day he’s so lost in his memories that he thinks he can hear Arthur speaking outside the door. He calls out to him and footsteps come running.

Merlin turns his head eagerly just as fingers prise the blindfold from his head.

For a second he sees him standing there, worry and love in his eyes.

And then Arthur’s face vanishes. In his place is… is… is…

Daegal.

The disappointment that overwhelms Merlin is so crushing that he can’t even appreciate having the blindfold off. He gasps a little and Daegal frowns. 

“Can you breathe okay?” 

“I want Arthur,” Merlin croaks, eyes welling up. “Please, you have to let me go.”

“I can’t,” Daegal says quietly.

Merlin’s throat is raw. His hands are completely numb and his ankle is swollen and purple. He’s sticky with dried sweat and he’s exhausted beyond belief.

“Please,” he whispers. “Please.”

“I’m sorry,” Daegal says, agonised.

Merlin looks at him a long time. Then he turns his face to the wall and closes his eyes until Daegal puts the blindfold back on.

The next time Alvarr comes with the dose, Merlin doesn’t try to fight it.

 

***

 

There’s a buzzing noise somewhere nearby and Merlin can’t work out what it is. He shifts a little from where he’s lying on his side, trying to train his ear on the noise.

His mouth tastes like ash. He probes it with his tongue, it feels like it’s coated with something. What is that sound?

Someone’s running their hands through his hair, soft and gentle. He jerks back and a voice hushes him.

“Merlin, it’s me.”

“Arthur?”

“It’s okay, baby, I’m here. I’m going to get you out. Just hold on.”

Arthur! Merlin forgets his hands are tied and tries to stretch out towards him. He hears a soft curse and then suddenly the tie digging into his wrists is gone.

“Oh darling,” Arthur says softly, massaging his hands back to life.

“Arthur…” Merlin says, craning forward. There’s a tug and the blindfold is released, but the light doesn’t hurt Merlin’s eyes this time. He sees his husband hovering above him, handsome face creased in concern.

“Take me home,” he says, voice breaking, and Arthur nods.

“It’s okay, Merlin, I’ll take you home. Get up. Get the fuck up. Fucking- fucking move!”

Merlin jerks awake. Someone is shouting in his ear, loud and harsh. The world is fuzzy at the edges and he’s being pulled up. He resists and suddenly strong arms are wrapping around his stomach, yanking him to his feet. He screams as his ankle protests and a hand claps over his mouth.

“Shut up,” an urgent voice says and then the gag is back in his mouth.

He thinks it’s Alvarr. Daegal’s not strong enough to drag him across the room like this; to practically hoist him in the air when his leg gives way and pain lances through him.

He groans around the gag and Alvarr squeezes his shoulder.

“If you can’t be quiet, I’ll cut your tongue out,” he hisses and he sounds deranged. Merlin shuts his eyes against the horror and lets Alvarr pull him along, not even resisting when he hears the door opening and he’s dragged out through it. Every step is agony but Merlin bites his lip hard so he doesn’t make a sound. He hasn’t known Alvarr to be so out of control before and he can’t be sure he won’t follow through on his threat.

He turns his mind to the question of why he’s being moved now but his brain is sluggish and he’s too focussed on not falling over or crying out to figure out why. But when he hears police sirens in the distance a spark of hope grows in his chest.

Perhaps someone is coming for him.

Another door opens and then they’re outside, Merlin can feel the cool air on his skin. He hears Alvarr swear and then they change direction suddenly, moving even faster. He’s trying to hop a little now so his leg doesn’t hit the ground so often but it’s hard to coordinate and tears of pain are running down his face.

Then he hears the sound of footsteps and he dares to dream it might be a rescuer.

“Thank Christ,” Alvarr snaps. “Get the van open.”

“What’s happening?” Daegal says and Merlin’s heart plummets again.

“They found us.”

“So let’s go.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do!” Alvarr growls, jostling Merlin forward.

Merlin swivels his head to where he can hear people in the distance but they’re too far away, they’re never going to catch up in time…

“Not him. Just us.”

Merlin isn’t sure he’s heard right.

“What?” Alvarr says.

“Let’s just leave him,” Daegal says. 

“Are you fu-”

“It’s over! Just let him go.”

There’s a silence and then Alvarr snarls.

“Out the way.”

“No, I-”

There’s a scuffle and Merlin’s yanked backwards. He stumbles and falls and then a hand is trying to pull him back up.

The shouts are getting closer and closer.

“He’s our only chance!” Alvarr screams and Merlin is wrenched to his feet again.

“Leave him, please, they won’t follow, they won’t-”

“Merlin!”

Arthur. Merlin twists in Alvarr’s grip, turning towards the voice. He might be imagining it again but he swears he heard-

“Oh God, Merlin!”

“Arthur!” Merlin shouts around the gag, straining backwards.

Then there’s many footsteps, many voices calling, and suddenly he’s being dropped again only this time someone catches him before he hits the ground. 

“I’ve got you, sweetheart, I’ve got you.”

And Merlin’s scared he’s hallucinating again but the hand stroking his cheek is warm and large and utterly familiar.

“Arthur,” Merlin sighs, and lets himself slip away.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Apologies for the lack of Arthur but he will be bringing the comfort in the next chapter...

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art: "Mine"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6387346) by [LFB72](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LFB72/pseuds/LFB72)




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